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Victor Micoud

La Citè Ideale // Victor Micoud

Victor Micoud (1987) is a french photographer based in Paris. After graduating in business, he started to deviate from the predicted path after multiple journeys, when it became clear that photography was more than a passion. His work was first exposed in Paris (2013) and he took part in the collective exhibition “100 photos to understand…” in the city of Lilles (2015).

Since 2014, his practice focuses on an analysis of the urban development of Paris’ suburbs. The resulting work “La Cité idéale” was exposed in 2014 and 2016 in Santiago de Chile, and was part of a conference in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago in July 2016.

La Citè Ideale

“This serie showcases an empty scenery where the actor, the human being, is present only through the vision he has of his environment. The way this space is being built gives us clues about our conception of “living together”, the contrary however, might also be possible: the environment could influence our behaviours and interactions.

The project originated from the questions Victor Micoud asked himself during his wanderings in the environment in which he has spent his life.

These photos show the threshold of a growing urbanization in the further outskirts of Paris, around EuroDisney, in the “ville nouvelle” of Marne-la-Vallée. Through a minimalist, symetric and clean aesthetic, I try to depict the will of a rationalization of our way of lives, integrating always more our wills, needs and dreams. This comes down to planning the habits of a medium city-dweller, leaving always less space to spontaneity, the creativity of individual initiative. In the meantime, the space created seems full of illusions, built as a “décor”, it gives the impression of breaking with standardization by changing colors, shapes and sizes, learning from the mistakes made in the past.

Disneyland is famous as the world of illusions. But do these illusions really stop at the limits of the park? or do they extend further, even among the streets of the cities built around it? This question is all the more relevant knowing that Disney is the owner of the area where those cities are built.

Where are those places, un-located, neutrals, disconnected from any context? Are they part of the real world or of an illusion we create of our future?”